"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of
God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers…”
(1 Corinthians 6:9). Adulterers are those who have unlawful sexual intercourse
with the spouse of another. As we noted in our previous discussion of fornicators,
when the two sins are distinguished, fornication refers to sexually immoral
people who are unmarried, while adultery refers to sexually immoral people who
are married, just “not to each other.” We read, “Marriage
is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers
God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4). Both sins pervert God’s plan for
marriage. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined
to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). “Nevertheless,
because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman
have her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2). However, adultery is in a special
way a violation of one’s marriage vows.
God has always condemned adultery. It was serious enough in His sight that one
of the Ten Commandments given to the nation of Israel was, “You shall
not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). As an aside, one early printing of
the English Bible (1631) was called the “Wicked Bible” because it
accidentally left out the word “not” in this commandment—“Thou
shalt commit adultery.” God’s general attitude towards adultery
can be seen in the punishment that He attached to it. “The man who commits
adultery with another man’s wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s
wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death”
(Leviticus 20:10). One notable example of adultery in the Scriptures was that
of David and Bathsheba. Because of his repentance, David was forgiven and not
put to death, but he suffered consequences from his sin for the rest of his
life.
God’s attitude regarding adultery has not changed. “Now the works
of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,
idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish
ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and
the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past,
that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God”
(Galatians 5:19-21). As Paul lists some of the sinful works of the flesh, for
which he again says “that those who practice such things will not inherit
the kingdom of God,” the very first one that he mentions is adultery.
Yet, in spite of the fact that the Bible clearly teaches that adultery is a
sinful work of the flesh and is condemned by God, in a 1984 report of a survey
of college religion teachers and “pastoral counselors,” sixteen
percent did not think that adultery was wrong. Closer to our time, according
to a report by Bloomberg Businessweek, the most recent data from the National
Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey show that women have had more
affairs in the past two decades than in previous years. The percentage of men
who admitted to infidelity "held constant at 21 percent," while "the
percentage of wives having affairs rose to 14.7 percent in 2010." These
numbers may not seem overly large, but given the fact that God’s word
is so plain on the subject, they are still somewhat surprising.
Adultery may take different forms. We usually think of adultery as breaking
one’s marriage vows by cheating on one’s spouse, such as the “woman
caught in adultery...in the very act” (John 8:1-5). Of course, since a
person cannot commit adultery by oneself and she was found in the very act,
we are made to wonder where the man was and why he was not taken too. Then,
Jesus said that for a man to look at a woman to lust for her is equivalent to
committing adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:27-28). And the Bible tells
us that unscriptural divorce and remarriage causes one to be guilty of adultery
(Matthew 19:9, Romans 7:2-3). What does God say about all this? “Adulterers
and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with
God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy
of God” (James 4:4). In spite of the world’s loose and carefree
attitude towards this sin, it is enmity with God and anyone who does it “will
not inherit the kingdom of God.”